Fleet Calculator

Notes

1. Tesla network fees Tesla takes 30% of rider revenue, plus a $200/month Full Self-Driving subscription. Tesla has said its cut will land between 25 and 30%. We use 30% to be conservative.

2. MAT Co. depot services One flat fee of $2,375 per vehicle per month at launch. Each calendar month it covers up to 26 interior resets, 4 deep cleans, and 8 exterior washes, secure parking, DC charging up to 800 kWh, and on-site servicing by our Tesla certified technicians: tires, rotations and alignments, brake pads and rotors, steering and suspension, the 12-volt battery, heat pump and air conditioning repairs, fluids and filters, and wiper blades. There are no per-mile charges, so the fee stays the same no matter how much the car drives. Work that has to go to Tesla directly is passed through at cost, with no markup from MAT.

3. Insurance, registration, and the loan Commercial insurance runs $800 a month per vehicle. Ohio EV registration is about $23.75 a month, which is the $285 a year state registration spread monthly. Selecting “Financed” adds a loan payment of about $783, which finances the full $30,000 vehicle plus 8% sales tax at 7.5% APR over 48 months with nothing down. The term matches the vehicle's working life, so the car is fully paid off by the time it retires.

4. Tesla service reserve Our technicians handle servicing at the depot, but a few jobs still go to Tesla directly: door and window actuators, low-voltage electronics, glass, and interior refurbishment. Those are passed through at cost with no markup. We budget about $6,000 over the vehicle's four-year life, held as a $125 monthly reserve. Tesla's basic warranty runs four years or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first. A robotaxi passes 50,000 miles in under a year, so we assume most of this work lands out of warranty. If Tesla offers stronger fleet coverage, this reserve shrinks.

Assumptions & caveats

Vehicle life We assume a useful life of 264,000 miles over a four-year service life, and then replacement. Tesla has not published official durability specs, so this is our planning assumption. A loan, if you use one, runs the same 48 months, so a retiring car carries no remaining debt.

Cash to get started Paying cash, all-in capital is $32,700 per vehicle: the $30,000 vehicle, $2,400 sales tax, a $15 title fee, and $285 for first-year registration. Financing instead, day-one cash is just the $300 of title and registration.

Ride and fare numbers The base case is 17 rides a vehicle a day at a $15 fare, across 350 operating days a year, which comes to about 496 rides a month. That is roughly one ride an hour across a 15-hour day on the road. The upside case runs 24 rides a day at a $17 fare. Each ride averages 5.5 paid miles, and cars drive another 50% in empty miles repositioning between rides. All figures are launch-year; the underlying model escalates fares and costs about 2.5% a year after that.

Waymo, for comparison Waymo has reported about 24 rides per vehicle per day across its driverless fleet. Our base case assumes 17 rides a day, and the upside case assumes 24.